THE COURIER/Jeanette Anderton The Dover City Council tabled taking any action about animal control when it became clear during discussion that the ordinance required further research. The council will address animal control issues at its August meeting when City Attorney Deidre Luker has had a chance to review the ordinance.

DOVER — Are chickens, ducks and guineas birds or fowl? The Dover City Council plans to answer that question before its next meeting.

The council Tuesday night tabled taking action regarding animal control when it became clear during discussion that the ordinance, which was written in 1996, required further research. The ordinance allows residents to keep birds in pens but it prohibits fowl.

Last month, the council received animal complaints from some neighbors of a Water Street resident. Mayor Pat Johnson and Marshal Rod Pfeifer investigated the complaint. Pfeifer gave aldermen an update, which started the ordinance discussion.

"Several of the big animals are gone and some of the others are," Pfeifer said. "They have put the chickens up ... they're going to keep a few, but most of them are going to be gone. That's something they couldn't do overnight. They are trying to get rid of all of them they can."

Alderman Roger Lee said he was unimpressed with the progress.

"There's a difference between reducing and eliminating," Lee said. "It's been a month."

Johnson said he's confident the problem will be solved.

"I talked to them and they assured me they were going to do it."

The discussion heated up when resident Rachel Campbell addressed the council about receiving a letter from Pfeifer earlier that day stating her chicken coop must be moved to comply with the ordinance. It was unclear why Campbell got a letter because there was not a complaint.

"My chicken coop has been there three years and nobody's ever complained about it," she said. "I wanted to speak up for people wanting to have a small number of chickens for fresh eggs, because it's healthier to eat fresh eggs. I don't see a problem with just a small number of just hens only."

Lee tried to explain to Campbell the council's conundrum.

"I don't think anybody sitting here has a problem with someone having a few chickens in a coop up against their house, especially if the neighbors are not complaining," he said. "The thing is, where do you draw the line?"

The council did not vote, but told Campbell she did not have to move the coop at this time.

"We need to deal with it on a complaint-by-complaint basis because if we don't and we send out letters ... and we don't get absolutely everybody, then we don't need it to be a discrimination issue or we're picking on somebody or something like that," City Attorney Deidre Luker said.

The council will address animal control issues during its August meeting once Luker has had a chance to review the ordinance.

"The first thing we need to do is get a good interpretation of what we got," Johnson said of the current ordinance. "We'll have Deidre study this, dissect it, and we'll figure out where we're at."

Look for more coverage of the meeting in future editions of The Courier.